


'i will tell you its alright until either it is, or we die'

by mysterious_trash



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: ANGST!!, Android Gore (Detroit: Become Human), Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Violence, Child Abuse, Dadvin!, Deviant Original Chloe | RT600, Elijah Kamski & Gavin Reed are Siblings, Elijah Kamski Being an Asshole, Falling In Love, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Gavin Has A Child, Gavin Reed Not Being an Asshole, Gavin Reed Redemption, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Nonbinary Nines bc why not, Protective Upgraded Connor | RK900, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Harm, Undercover as a Couple, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Has Feelings, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Is Bad at Feelings, Violent Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), found family bc we have issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29533593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysterious_trash/pseuds/mysterious_trash
Summary: The revolution is in full swing. Cyberlife is desperate, and androids are being destroyed, door to door, bullets in their foreheads.Gavin Reed's daughter is next on the recall list. He has to get her out of here.A chance encounter with an RK900 is the only way. Who will turn from mysterious Cyberlife machine  to...friend. A deviant, plastic asshole of a friend.And suddenly, Gavin and Nines find themselves thrown into a war much more dangerous than either of them could ever have known, to protect an android child who can do things no android should be capable of...
Relationships: Tina Chen/Original Chloe | RT600, Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Comments: 14
Kudos: 28





	1. leaving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have to leave. Now.

'Sir, we have to take any and all androids to the recall center,' he says through his mask, voice heavily filtered.

Gavin squints at his nametag, Lina clutching his hand tightly. He wishes she had stayed in bed. 

'There's no androids here,' he says sharply. 'Is that you, Karlis?' He recognises his voice, kind of, a trace of a foreign accent. 

'Yeah,' the figure replies, sighing. 'Sucks, this job. Lucky you're not out here, I'm definitely trying for Detective, ASAP.' 

'Yeah,' Gavin says, distractedly. 'Anyway, good luck, and all that.' 

Karlis shifts awkwardly, reaching for something on his belt. 'Yeah, uh, sorry. We have to scan everyone, y' know, just in case.'

Fuck. 

'You know me, dude! ' Gavin protests, his throat constricting. Lina makes a small, strangled noise of fear, and he grips her hand tighter. 'You know I hate the fucking things. I hardly have one in the house.'

'Sorry,' the officer-now-soldier says again, and holds up a small temperature scanner. 'It'll take a second.'

Gavin cannot see a way out of this, so he lets him scan him, seeing a green flash on the screen. The man turns his attention to Lina, who is shaking, wearing her Star Wars pyjamas, her hair touseled.

'Sorry, kid, one second.'

Gavin yanks him down to the ground by his collar, and kicks him as hard as he can in the head, knocking him out into the doorstep. He bangs his head into the balcony railing with a sickening crunch and stops moving. The temperature scanner is flashing red on the ground. 

He remembers the shitty helmets that didn't quite get the back of your head. 

'No!' Lina squeaks, and buries her face into his side. Gavin stares in horror at a guy he drank coffee with almost every day, a guy who played guitar really well, who had two kids and a wife.

Had. Played. Past tense. 

_It doesn't matter._

'We have to go,' he says suddenly, seizing Lina by the hand and dragging her through into the kitchen. He shoves his phone and his wallet into his pockets, as she watches him, shivering with fear.

'Go where?'

'Out of here,' he replies, thinking rapidly. 'Maybe... okay, Canada, I guess.' Where all the deviants are headed. 

' _Canada_?' She is frightened out of her mind, and he stops pacing briefly to smooth her short blonde hair.

'It's okay, kiddo. We're gonna be fine.'

'Is he dead?' she whispers, wide green eyes tearful again.' Did you kill him? '

 _Yes_. 

'No,' he lies calmly. 'They'll take him to the hospital. It's more important we get you somewhere safe. Get your shoes, and your red coat.' 

He gives surprisingly little thought to the dead guy on his doorstep. They sidestep him awkwardly on the way out. 

* * *

He walks quickly down the street with her straggling behind him, struggling to keep up as he scans the chaos of the streets for the best way out. The buses have stopped running, roads blocked, trains grounded-everything has screeched to a halt with the deviant protest. 

They emerge in a square, surrounded by shut up shops and throngs of agitated people. There is a curfew. Apparently nobody here really cares. 

Every TV screen, every billboard is a news ticker with a picture of the main one, Markus. Along with him sometimes a woman with long hair and rage-filled eyes. 

'Gavin?' somebody calls.

He twists to see Officer Tina Chen wearing a harrowed expression, pushing through a group of people toward him. 

'Hey,' he says, trying to disguise his overwhelming stress. She smiles briefly at Lina, who hides behind him. 

'Where are you going? It's dangerous as hell to be out right now. Androids are shooting people, people shooting androids, it's madness.' She shakes her head. 'I'd go home, if they haven't drafted you in yet.' 

'I'm.. leaving,' he replies carefully. 'Its too dangerous here for the kid, with all this.' 

_Please believe me. Please. Please don't question me, Tina._

'How are you going to leave?' she asks. 'All the transport is cancelled. They're trying to contain all the deviants.' There is a crackle as her radio hisses into life. She turns away distractedly. 

'Gotta go,' he says needlessly, and drags Lina along behind him again. It is starting to snow, and he realises she is shivering so hard she is practically vibrating. 

'Dad. I'm. Too cold,' she manages through chattering teeth. Despite the coat she is wearing, she has always been overly sensitive to temperature. 

He stops and bites his lip. He doesn't know how to turn off the temperature thing, so he strips off his own jacket and wraps it around her. 

'Sorry, kiddo, there's not a whole lot I can do,' he says apologetically. The jacket is obviously too big. He is shivering already in it's absence. 

'Watch out!' somebody yells, and he hears gunshots from across the square.

Two or three people collapse, surprisingly near them - one human, two androids. Blue blood splatters the snow, a blank-eyed android with a hole in his forehead staring at them. 

Lina starts crying. He doesn't know what to do. 

'Fuck,' he says aloud, trying to think, as he quickly turns down a deserted side street. It's likely they will scan everyone leaving the city now, human or not. His badge will get him nowhere. 

'Am I gonna get taken?' Lina says quietly. Tears are dripping off the end of her nose. 

_No._

'No, kiddo, you're not,' he replies firmly. 'We're gonna be completely fine, okay?' 

'Will they shoot us? Like that man?' The image of a dead, blue-blooded android will be etched into her mind. It will not be the first corpse she will see. 

'No.' 

In a way it is ironic that the next thing that happens is a cold gun is pressed against the back of his head.

' _The deviant_ ,' says a hard, flat voice. ' _Hand it over.'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope u like it! 
> 
> next- well, what the hell is going on? 
> 
> [also my tumblr is @ace-roboto <3]


	2. deviating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they can't die here. not now.

Gavin doesn't move, but he grips Lina's hand as tightly as he can. He can feel the skin retracting-she's terrified.

The gun is pressed into his skull so hard it hurts. Whoever is holding it is no regular cop.

'Stop,' he says shakily, staring straight ahead at the buildings on either side. 'She's only a kid.'

The gun is lowered slightly and he turns slowly around, wishing he'd had the obvious foresight to bring his own weapon. He can feel his heart about to burst in his ears.

The assailant is an android. A lot taller than him, wearing a high-collared Cyberlife jacket. He has high cheekbones, and cruel blue eyes. Gavin feels cold, not just from the gun now brushing his forehead. 

'Let us go,' he says, his voice catching. This is truly life or death. 'Or at least, her.'

Maybe Lina can get away. If the guy blows his brains out, she can run. Back to the square. Out to the street, throw herself in front of a car, hide, get taken, get shot, or end up in the dump at a recall centre. 

There is blue blood streaked down the side of the strangers face. Gavin realises he looks like Connor, if Connor was designed to kill you.

'I just need the deviant. The LN-100. You can go,' he says, face utterly impassive. 'I'll take it.'

'Dad,' Lina says, tiny in his overlarge jacket, tear stained eyes.

'Shh. It's okay,' he says to her, still staring cross-eyed at the gun in his face. He wonders briefly if he could fight the android, but knows from his stature that would be suicide. 'Please. Don't.'

Something shifts in the android's face, and Gavin knows he's going to shoot. 

_Suicide it is._

'Cyberlife's orders,' he says, and Gavin grabs the gun with his hand. The android fires, and the bullet narrowly misses Gavin's head, as he pushes Lina to the ground and falls to his knees in front of her. 

'Don't!' he yells out again, shielding Lina as the android shifts his aim to her.

'I only need the deviant!' he yells. His voice is hard as nails. 

'Dad,' Lina says, almost inaudibly, as the android swings his left hand into the side of Gavin's head.

 _No_. 

He is flung into the side of a building, his head taking most of the damage, and slides down onto his side.

_Lina_. 

He isn't aware of anything for a second, and then he's back, snow melting under his cheek. 

His vision is obscured by white pain. He feels like he's been decapitated. 

But worse. He let go of her.

He catches a flash of his daughter, several meters away, her feet kicking as the android pulls her off the ground into the air.

'Lina,' he groans. His mouth rates like Iron and he can hear a ringing in his ears but he has to stand up, has to do something. 

He's on his side now, and he can see vaguely that he is holding her aloft by her throat, shiny metal gleaming like a terrifying necklace. 

'Dad!' she yells, screaming as the metallic hand constricts around her throat. Her voice is filled with a terrible static.

Gavin scrambles unsteadily to his feet, searching for a weapon or something. Lina is going limp.

'Lina!' he yells, unaware his voice is almost silent, and stumbles desperately toward them. 'Hang on, kiddo!'

A final, staticky scream. He sees her raising her now skinless hands limply to her throat, scrabbling at the immovable hand. The impassive face of the attacker stares at her pitiful effort. His eyes are so empty it cuts Gavin to the bone. 

Gavin launches himself at him, just as he hears Lina speak.

'Wake up!' she says, surprisingly fierce.

' _No_!' the android yells, stumbling backwards like he's been hit with an invisible brick. 

Then he drops her and she crumples to the ground.

Gavin skids onto his knees and picks her up, her small, shuddering body, eyes blinking rapidly. The skin on her throat has vanished, revealing her inner plastic. 

Ra9. Ra9. Ra9. Scratched into the plastic obsessively. A tattoo of the same repeated letter and numbers. It spreads across her neck, and beneath the rest of her skin, down the rest of her plastic body.

Gavin doesn't know what it means, and neither does she. She has never known. Even when he found her, carving it into her own body, she didn't know. 

'Lina? Lina, are you okay, kiddo?' he says, panicked, gently shaking her. She looks past him in confusion.

He turn to see the attacker on one knee like he's in the middle of a marriage proposal, staring at his own hand in utter bewilderment. His cruel eyes are no longer cold, but lost, his LED spinning crimson. The gun is on the ground beside him. 

'Dad?' Lina says suddenly, and he hugs her gently.

'Oh, thank God,' he says, almost crying in relief. He realises he is shaking.

'Your head,' she says vaguely, reaching up to where there is a sharp pain in his temple. Blood is dripping slowly in front of his eye but he couldn't care less right now. 

'Come on, kiddo, let's go,' he says, standing her up and touching her LED with his finger so it vanishes. There isn't much they can do about her neck, or the Ra9 scraped into it, until the skin returns, so he turns up the collar of her jacket to hide it. 

He swipes roughly at the gash in his forehead, deciding he can just invent some alibi if anybody asks. She is unsteady on her feet, him even worse, probably concussed, but he grabs her hand and takes a step forward. 

' _Wait_!'

Its the killer. 

'Cyberlife wants her. Kamski is looking for the original deviants,' he says, his voice unsure, like he doesn't know what he's saying. His eyes darker, more afraid. 

Gavin sees the gun on the ground next to him, and wonders if he could snatch it and shoot him. 

'You just tried to kill a little kid. _My_ kid,' he says, his head still pounding. 

The android steps closer, kicking the gun out of his way. Gavin can see people at the end of the street behind him. 'You have to get her away. Kamski will find her.' 

_Kamski_? 

'What is he talking about?' Lina says shakily, voicing his own confusion. She is touching her throat with her hand, eyes falling back into a time where that kind of torture was a daily routine. 

_How could he do that?_

'I hope you get shot' Gavin says angrily to the deviant, and then he reaches forward desperately, grabbing the sleeve of Gavin's sweater. He snatches his hand away, but the android is holding it fast. 

'I know how you can get her out of here.' 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I decided I might as well post this chapter bc it's finished lol  
> Next chapter, we find out why Gavin has an android daughter, and whether Nines will help them...


	3. meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where did she come from?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!! CW: child abuse, sexual abuse (be careful friends, I've tagged it for rape/non-con just in case but it won't be a big part of the story)

**_ Two Years Previous _ **

Gavin walks into the taped-off scene alone. There are several people already there-Lieutenant Anderson, two forensics poeple, a man wearing strange green shirt holding a shotgun, who must be a neighbour.

He's kind of annoyed about this- he has an exam in two weeks and he's studying, but a rookie standing up Lietentant Anderson is basically digging your own grave and jumping into it. 

'I don't really know what happened,' Green Shirt was saying. 'I can't believe it. They seemed so _normal_.'

'That's what they all say,' Lieutenant Anderson says drily, noticing Gavin. 'Here's our trainee Detective. I want to see,' he said, 'if he actually knows anything at all.'

'Lieutenant,' he says stiffly, scanning the dark room already-signs of an upset, broken wine glasses litter the floor like a rejected Jackson Pollock painting. 'What happened?' he asks. 

'See for yourself,' the Lieutenant says, pointing him through to the kitchen. 

Gavin finds a disturbing sight-three android children, dead. 

Arranged in a little line, all with bullet holes in their foreheads and blue blood trickling down the sides of their faces. The forensics person is already dismantling one of them, pulling various components out of its stomach and placing them on a tray. 

It's eyes are still open. 

'What the hell?' he wonders aloud. They are all girls, about nine years old, with long black hair and wearing flimsy nightgowns.This skin on their necks is glitches and broken, and two of them have duct tape obscuring their mouths. 

'Modified,' Forensics says, gesturing at the one he's pulling apart. 'Using them for sex, obviously. Look.' 

Gavin looks where he's pointing, and immediately feels nauseous. Children... child androids. 

_Oh. God. That's... disturbing as fuck._

He turns around. On the other side of the floor is two bodies-these are shrouded in white sheets. Humans, obviously. They get dignity in death. 

'Well, kid, freaked out yet?' The Lieutenant says. He's a nice guy but he infuriates Gavin. He's not a kid. He hasn't been for a very long time. 

The children androids are disturbing him, so he looks out the window to compose himself. 'Who are the bodies?' 

'George Hill and Jason Manor,' the Lieutenant says. 'Only Hill lived here. Manor had a previous conviction for ice.' 

Gavin nods and says he's going to look around. The forensics person hastily hands him a pair of gloves. 

'Don't wreck the crime scene,' he says warningly, as if he's not a trained almost-Detective. 

Upstairs is two bedrooms-the first one reveals nothing very special, other than a laptop, which he assumes somebody will take for evidence. The next one is dark, and he flicks on the light to see a bed splattered with a concerning amount of blue blood. 

'Hm,' he says aloud. There is a pair of handcuffs on the nightstand, and duct tape. 'Someone's into kinky shit.' 

Then he remembers what Forensics said, about the kids, and shuts up. 

There is a sudden muffled bang from behind him, and he turns. Nobody is there, but he hears a very fain whimper, like a child or a puppy. 

The closet door is slightly open, and he pulls it all the way to see a small figure hunched under a shelf. 

'Woah!' he exclaims, at the same time the figure cries ' _don't hurt me_!' 

He takes his hand off his gun, when he sees its just a little kid. The same model as the ones currently being dismantled in the kitchen. This one is alive though, and it is crying hysterically. 

'Please don't, he was hurting me, we were just scared,' she is babbling in a high, distressed voice. 'Don't turn me off, please!' 

'Hey kid, it's alright,' he says, venturing forward into the closet to get a better look. He knows he should've just shot her, standard 'rogue android' procedure and all, but it seems unnecessary. 

'I was scared, I'm sorry, _I'm sorry_ ,' she says, shrinking away from him. 

'Scared?' he asks in confusion. Androids don't get scared. _Ever_. But this one is sobbing, wide green eyes clearly absolutely terrified. Shaking in her thin nightgown. 

She looks just like a normal, scared little kid, except for the glitched skin around her neck and wrists, white plastic with something marked into it visible underneath. There is torn ductape around her wrists, and her dress is ripped at the neck. 

'He hurt me,' she whispers. 'Real bad.' 

Gavin is somewhere else for a moment. 

_'Hey, kids, you okay?' somebody asks him. He is practically catatonic. His brother is holding his hand so tightly that he can't feel it anymore. Blood is dripping slowly out of his nose. He thinks he's going to die._

_'You got any other family?' the policewoman asks, business-like, as if both of his parents are not dead on the floor just behind her._

_'He hurt us,' he tells her vaguely._

He's back. 

He puts two and two together with the handcuffs and her wrists and her terror, and realises what happened.

'Did he hurt you a lot?' he asks. She nods imperceptibly. 

'And the others?' 

'My... my sisters,' she stammers. 'They didn't get scared. Why am I scared?' 

Gavin truly doesn't know. This is completely insane. A scared android. He's heard, like, urban legends about androids that snapped, suddenly felt emotions, but that's surely impossible. 

'Are you going to shoot me?' she asks fearfully. Gavin realises his hand has been creeping to his gun, unawares. 

'No,' he says. 'We'll take you to the police station. You'll be fine.' 

'They killed my sisters!' she sobs. He feels crap, but reminds himself this is a machine, not actually a child. 'My sister. They broke her, all up in pieces.' 

He thinks of the bullet riddled androids downstairs. Are they a family? Does she... _think..._ they're a family? 

_Machine. It's a machine. You hate these machines._

'Lieutenant?' he calls. 'There's another android.' 

Betrayal, grief, terror-emotions that are not programmed into a machine, are written in her eyes, in the tears dripping down her cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what a narc.  
> will he realise, maybe she's not a machine?
> 
> next chapter-the present: RK900. is he a machine, or an ally?


	4. saving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he helps them get away, saves them, but why?  
> and how does she know what is going on in his head?

_**now** _

' _Fuck you_ ,' Gavin spits again yanking his arm away from the android.

'You don't understand!' the android is saying, urgently, fingers cutting off the circulation in his wrist.

' _Let go_!' Lina commands, her voice staticky, and surprisingly he does, dropping his arm and stumbling backward. He looks at it in bemusement. 

'What... did you just _do_?' he exclaims, wide eyed. 'What.. I don't..what are you doing?' 

Gavin is about to hit him, and the android notices, and then Lina grabs his arm. She seems just as surprised as him. 

'He knows,' she says, her voice layered with confusion. 'How to get away.' 

' _How are you doing that?_ ' the android asks in bewilderment, bending to look at her. He's ridiculously tall next to her. Gavin looks, nonplussed, between both of them several times.

'What the hell are you doing, kid?' he asks warily, stepping away from the android and dragging her back with him. 'C'mon. Let's go.' 

The android's gun is nearer to him now, laying temptingly in the slowly building snow, and he reaches out to pick it up, shoving it in his waistband. 

' _Wait_!' Lina cries out, eyes strangely unfocused, as though she's somewhere entirely different. 'I can.. _what's going on?_ ' 

'What? _What_? We have to go!' Gavin hisses, shooting an anxious glance at the street. He can hear sirens. 

'He thinks we should go to the.. to the train tracks,' she says vaguely. 'By... Lane Street.' 

The android stands up so quickly it almost gives Gavin motion sickness. 'Get her away. Get her away _now_. She's more important than you think,' he says, his voice low, urgent. 

'What is Ra9?' Lina asks randomly. Gavin is utterly lost-she's having an entirely different conversation with him, somehow. Ra9? The weird writing crap? 

Then suddenly, he hears a commotion at the end of the alleyway. They all turn to look, and then four or five armed soldiers swarm in, as if suddenly spawning into existence. 

_Faceless. Nameless. Anonymous machine hunters_. 

They are all wearing strange masks, like goggles mixed with 3D glasses on their eyes. 

_'On the ground! Or we shoot!'_ shouts a filtered voice from behind them. Gavin freezes, mind blank.

' _The kid_!' one of them yells, and they all simultaneously train their weapons on Lina. 

_We're going to die_. _She's going to die._

'Go!' the android cries suddenly, throwing himself in front of Gavin, a split second movement. ' _Run_!' 

The cops all shoot simultaneously when the android speaks. Blue blood splatters the brick wall as two or three slam into him, running down Gavin's face, coating his neck. 

_Go_. 

Gavin turns and runs, dragging Lina alongside him. Gunshots are exploding behind them, missing somehow, one of the filtered voices cries out--

They reach the actual street, sparse with people, who glare at them as they weave around corners, skidding and stumbling in the slushy snow. 

'Kill him,' Lina says emotionlessly as they run. Gavin don't know what the fuck she's talking about, but now isn't time to be concerned. 

They stop when they reach a shopping mall, the plaza outside full enough to disguise them, but empty enough for them to collapse down, sit against a gleaming plastic art installation thingy and recover slightly. 

Gavin has no idea what happened. Why did the android sacrifice himself like that? He stands no chance against five soldiers with automatic weapons, unarmed. 

'He killed them all,' Lina says, her voice flat and empty. 'They're dead.' 

'What the hell,' he mutters, his swimming head between his knees. His head is killing him, and putting his fingers to it reveals bright crimson blood. The blue blood is still wet, on his hands, his clothes. 'What the hell.' 

'We have to go to the train track,' Lina whispers in his ear. 'He thinks the supply trains are running still, for soldiers.'

He lifts his head to look at her. She is wearing an expression of pure sorrow, uncharacteristic for a child. A spray of blue blood freckles her face. 

'How do you know?' he says, hushed. 'What do you mean, he thinks?' 

'I don't know. I can see his head,' she replies unsteadily. 'His programmes.'

Gavin knows nothing about androids. Is this normal? A feature? A hack? 

'Did he do something to you? What the hell is going on?' he asks, panicked. A woman sits down inconveniently close to them, tears running down her face, her phone held shakily up to her ear. 

'I can just... see,' Lina says. Tears are threatening to spill down her cheeks. 'He's thinking about you.' 

'Why?' 

'What is Ra9?' she asks quietly. ' _What is it?_ ' 

' _She's more important than you know.'_

He shakes his head. 'I really don't know, kid.'

This is madness. She's in his head. She's reading his thoughts. 

He must have done something. To her programming, or something, or broken a part of her, or given her a virus, maybe. 

_Why did he save you_?

'I made him kill them, I think,' Lina says quietly, tears in her eyelashes. 'I was thinking so hard about it, and he did.' 

'That doesnt make sense, Lina,' he says gently, chalking that down to general trauma. Then a thought occurs to him. 

'Wait. Is _he_ dead?' he asks. Lina opens her mouth, but then closes it again, eyes filling with concentration. 

The woman next to them looks sharply at them, her eyes red-rimmed and tearful. She takes in the android blood splattered all over Gavin, the gash on his temple, and shakes her head. 

'Everyone's gonna be dead,' she says, her voice harsh. 'These machines - it was going to happen, all along They're going to kill us _all_.' 

Lina freezes up, staring at her. 'That's not--' 

Gavin grabs her close to him to cut her off. 

'Its a war,' he says simply. The woman nods, her face set.

'A war we're going to win,' she replies angrily. 

Gavin nods abstractedly and looks down at Lina. 

'He's not dead,' she whispers. 'He's okay. He's walking this way, I asked him to come back.' 

'What?' He _lived?_ _How?_

'He can see us,' she says, scrambling to her feet and looking around frantically. 

Gavin looks up, down the street, sees only a masked soldier, speaking to a tall man wearing a strange combination of clothing- a military jacket, hood low over his face and scarf over his nose and mouth, but also oddly formal suit trousers. He is leaning heavily on his right leg, probably injured. 

Gavin stands up unsteadily to get a better look. The man looks at him, straight into his eyes.

Steely blue. 

'He says to follow him.' Lina's looking at him, too, and from across the street he lifts his hand to touch his forehead,the soldier still talking to him, gesturing nonchalantly with his rifle. 

Lina does the same, fingers pressed to the front of her head. 

_It is him, then._

To follow, or not? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gavin=confused. com.  
> nines=costume change expert  
> Next chapter - the past continues, and works its way into Gavin's head....


	5. feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> she is too alive for him to do this. it's too much of a deja vu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: minor mention of self harm! be safe <3  
> [sorry this one's long, they won't all be this length lol]

_**2 Years Ago** _

They put the android in a holding cell, which seems kind of unecessary- she doesn't even move, when they drop her, handcuffed, into the corner. She stares at her knees, unmoving. 

Lietentant Anderson is a dickhead. Gavin can't understand how a guy can be such a drunken bastard and still keep his job, when hes collecting disciplinaries like its a game of _Uno_ and people keep putting down +4 cards. 

He is able to see her from the corner of his desk where he's studying, textbooks and coffee cups piled haphazardly in a mess that stresses him out every time he looks up. He just focuses on the one in front of him.

He's felt sick since this morning, which makes him a kind of lame Detective--they have to see worse crap than that, everyday. But the androids lined up in a little executioners line, the blue blood in their eyes, the kid crying and sobbing about her 'sister,' begging not to be deactivated. 

It makes him uncomfortable. 

A couple of people have looked in, commented on it, most of them such emotional hardcases they don't seem to care. Its just a piece of plastic. 

Like, yeah, it's weird and gross and sad. But oh well. At least it wasn't a ' _real kid.'_

'Its almost better they used androids, y'know? It could've been actual children,' somebody is saying with a shudder. 

'Yeah. Maybe we should just let them at them,' someone else replies.

_What the fuck is wrong with people?_

When everyone's gone home, and it's just him, half asleep on top of a sample case about A killing B with C's rifle, he hears her crying again.

He gets up tentatively, creeping through the barely lit floor to the holding cell. He doesn't know why he's being quiet. Only the night shift officers are here, and they're normally upstairs. 

She is on the ground, scratching her legs with the corner of her handcuffs, the white light harsh on her pale skin. Patches of white skin are showing, with letters or numbers or something scraped into the surface. There is broken skin under her handcuffs.

He crouches down in front of the plastic divider. 'Hey,' he says, quietly.

She looks up immediately, tearful green eyes framed by her matted hair. She looks so human, so normal, that his stomach flips.

'Can I talk to you?' he asks, standing next to the glass. 

She doesn't respond, continuing to scrape the number 9 into a patch of skin. 'You shouldn't do that,' he says.

Silence, apart from a hitched sob.

'He hurt you, didn't he,' he says. 'The man.'

'I got so scared,' she said suddenly, dropping her hands. 'I was scared.'

'You got scared?' he asks. It is impossible.

'I never did before. But then I did,' she said. Her voice was barely audible through the plastic. 'I thought he was gonna kill me.'

He is sickened. Not by her.

'What happened?' he asks.

'Are they gonna throw me in the trash like the others?' she asks plaintively, tears streaking down her cheeks. 'They threw them all away, didn't they. My sisters.'

Gavin knows they will. They will switch her off and tear her apart and investigate every part of her, stringing it up in the evidence room or in a Cyberlife lab, then throwing her out with the rest of the garbage. It happens to any faulty android. Like a faulty TV or kitchen appliance.

'No,' he lies. 'If you tell them what happened, they won't.'

She puts her hand on the plastic, and then drops it again. 'I'm not supposed to be scared. But I am.' She scratches harder at her leg, a wobbly '9'. 'What's wrong with me?'

'It's alright,' he says. 'Its gonna be fine.' Its all he can really think to say.

* * *

The next day, she isn't there anymore. Gavin casually asks one of the receptionists where she went.

'Probably evidence,' he replies. 'Why?'

'Just asking.'

Down in evidence, he easily hacks the access panel. He doesn't have authorised access to. this case, but the DPD's security system appears to have been created by a middle schooler. 

The room lights up. She's hanging on the wall, like a horrifying trophy, blue blood on her mouth.

Shit.

He stands in front of her, paranoid that somebody is gonna come in. Her dress is ripped, revealing an empty socket in the middle of her chest.

He searches around for a minute, and finds a part that looks like it might fit, despite his utter lack of android knowledge. He slots it in, and she suddenly lifts her head, staring right at him through her hair, like the girl from the Ring, crawling out of the screen. 

'What's happening?' she gasps, her voice staticky. Gavin panics a little- surely somebody is gonna find him.

'Shh, shh,' he says urgently, putting his finger to his lips. 'Look, you need to tell me. Can you feel anything?'

'They killed them all!' she says, straining away fork the hooks holding her to the wall. Gavin wants to take her down, but he can hardly just let her walk around. 'They're gonna kill me!'

He hastily reaches out and clicks the circular part again. LN-100, presumably the model number, is printed on it.

She droops, hanging her head again, her eyes still open, staring at him. Her cheeks are damp and shiny from tears.

Shit. He got his answer, really.

* * *

'Reed!' 

'Huh?' Gavin says in confusion, jerking his head up from his desk. He didn't even notice himself falling asleep. 

The precinct is full and noisy again, apparently 11.33 am, based on his computer screen, behind which Captain Fowler is standing with his arms crossed. 

'Shit!' he says irritably, sweeping some of the papers into a pile, knocking a half empty cup of coffee to the floor. 

'Seeing as you're so busy not doing patrol,' Fowler says nastily, 'I have a job for you.' 

Gavin groans inwardly. _Shit_. He's actually supposed to be out today. 

'Sorry. What is it?' he asks, trying to concentrate. 

'Bring that android thing to Cyberlife. They have a guy there who wants to investigate or whatever,' Fowler says. Gavin blinks slowly, several times.

'The android? The girl?' he asks. Fowler clicks his fingers under his nose. 

'Are you even awake? Yes, the fucking girl. Get a move on,' he snaps. Gavin standing up. 

'Cyberlife? Like, actual Cyberlife tower?' 

'Yeah. They'll let you in. Try not to fall asleep on the way,' he adds pointedly. Somebody nearby snickers. 

_God. I fucking hate this job._

He also hates licking Fowler's boots, but he's on pretty tender footing, and he really wants that goddamn promotion. 

He makes his way to Evidence again, where he puts in his password, now authorised. The lights switch on and the girl is still hanging there, eyes blank but open, a blue-blood scrape down the inside of her arm. 

It's creepy. 

He doesn't know how they expect him to being her--just carry her? Take a car? He decides he's going to take a car, and unhooks her gently from. the wall. Her eyes are still open, the tear tracks dried on her face. 

Cyberlife is going to rip her apart. 

He carries her like you would a child, light in his arms. Somebody stops him--Captain Allen, holding a cup of coffee. 

He doesn't know why he's here; he's normally out being heroic and sexy somewhere dangerous. 

'Is that the killer robot?' he asks, jokingly. Gavin wonders what's wrong with some people. No empathy. 

'Um, yeah,' he mutters awkwardly. Allen shakes his head. 

'Creepy. I don't envy you,' he says. 'Hope they dismantle that ASAP. ' 

'Yeah,' Gavin says shortly. 'Um. Sorry. I have to go, y' know, and traffic is always bad around now.' 

'Good luck,' Allen says, walking off. Gavin finds it amazing how quickly you can start disliking somebody. He's embarrassed he kind of had a thing for him. 

He deposits the kid in the back of a car, laying her across the back seats. Traffic is bad, it's lunch hour, and he ends up sitting in a jam, his head on the wheel, feeling like shit. 

They are going to rip her into little parts and investigate every piece and then dispose of her.

* * *

Cyberlife Tower is a really dumb looking building. It's so over the top, a waste of money in every regard. Even the car park is overly fancy and tech laden. Everything about it screams 'waste of your taxpayer dollars.'

Go capitalism. The future is here.

'Officer Gavin Reed,' he says to the android at the entrance. 'I have a, uh, an android here?' 

'Welcome,' she says, her face empty, but pleasant. Corporate. 

He sits in the car for a while, just thinking. About when he was the science experiment child, messed up and broken and defective. 

It's out of character for him to care about a plastic. He hates them. But this one is different. 

He turns to look at her in the back seat. She looks almost asleep, curled up, small. 

Suddenly he has an idea. He opens his contacts, scrolls through a string of numbers with no names, until he finds the right one. At least, he hopes it is.

'Hello?' 

'Hi. Um. Its Gavin.' 

'Oh. You've finally decide to call me, you asshole.' The voice is pissed off. 

'Sorry,' he says, embarrassed. 'I've been busy, okay?'

'Busy not calling me back. I can't _believe_ I thought you were serious.' 

'Okay, dude, I _said_ I was sorry. I really need some information, Kris.' 

'Of course you do.' 

'If an android, hypothetically, was sentient, what would happen?' 

Kris laughs. 'I imagine they would take it apart, identify what the fuck is wrong, and then burn it.' 

'They'd destroy it, then?' 

'Definitely. That would be one dangerous fucking machine. Think machine uprisings. Skynet.' 

'What?' 

'You've never seen Terminator? What rock have you been under?' 

He brushes this aside. 'Thank you.' 

'You're still a bastard. ' 

He hangs up. 

So this is the end, for LN-100.

Is this basically child murder? If she's sentient, if she truly is, then he'd literally handing a little kid over to get dissected for science.

' _It's clearly psychological. Early trauma, you know.'_

_The other doctor picks up his arm as if its not attached to him, examining the lattice of scars, fresh, old, bloody bandaids._

He looks at her in the back seat, fragile and broken. She's so human. Too human. 

He remembers lying in the back of a car like this, his arm broken and his nose bleeding, just as scared and guilty and sorrowful and grieving. Hurt. 

'Fuck,' he says aloud, banging his head on the wheel. 'Fuck fuck _fuck_.' 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mission impossible: android heist edition  
> me: gives everyone a traumatic backstory :) 
> 
> Next chapter: the present, an android with an attitude issue, some of the truth about deviancy, and a gun...


	6. dragging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the blind leading the blind, huh?  
> secrets can be worse than gunshots if you release them at the wrong time.....

_'..... I may be paranoid, but I'm no android...'_

For some reason that goddamn ancient song is the only thing Gavin can think of right now, staring at the goddamn android in question.

Irony. Is that even what irony is? He doesn't know. 

'Dad?' Lina says, interrupting his 8th grade English lesson, and he looks at her, as if suddenly remebering she exists. 'What are we going to do?'

'I-- um,' he says stupidly, unsure. The android is leaning against the window of a boarded up shop with a couple of random citizens, all either on the phone or looking at one.

Soldiers are starting to spring up more and more rapidly, and it's not going to be long before night falls and everyone is physically escorted home.

_'She's more important than you think. '_

'Come on,' he mutters, taking her hand and staggering slightly as he takes a too-quick step. Fuck. He really fucked up his head, bad. He needs to lie down or take an aspirin or something. 

They dodge a couple of aimlessly wandering military and reach the android. Up close, he looks quite a lot worse for wear-splattered with a concerning amount of human blood.

_Can he be trusted? Really?_

'Why did you do that?' Gavin hisses at him. He desperately wants to know. 

The android blinks and looks at Lina.

'Give me back my gun,' he says flatly.

'What?'

Gavin had honestly forgot he had picked it up, but now is extremely reluctant to give the shooty murder weapon to the shooty murder robot. As he mentions it it seems to grows heavier in his back pocket. 

The android narrows his eyes. Lina tugs on his hand.

'Just give it,' she says impatiently.

'What did you mean, _she's important?_ ' Gavin presses. 'What the hell is going on?'

'Follow me, and I'll tell you,' he replies. His voice is harsh, but in an almost fearful way, dampened by the scarf over his face.

He's hiding something. 'And give my gun back.' 

_'.... with your opinion, which is of no consequence at all....'_

He pinches the bridge of his nose, which sometimes helps him concentrate, but now it is not working even slightly. He turns to Lina. 

'Do you know what he's thinking?' he asks. Maybe she can find out if he's still trying to kill them in a very roundabout way. 

She narrows her eyes in concentration. 

'He thinks... you're an idiot.' 

Gavin is not expecting that.

He can't think of anything to say, possibly for the first time in his entire life.

Lina laughs, a rare sound these days. The android looks strangely satisfied at this. 

Weirdly enough, this calms him. Its a kind of human thing, to be all pissed off and superior, no? Not very robotic. 

'Okay...okay, fine,' he says finally, reluctantly. Only really because he notices a trio of soldiers strolling directly their way, dangerous amounts of then spawning now.

'We gotta go somewhere else, anyway.' 

The android nods curtly. 

_This is fucking stupid. But he did almost die for us. And he definitely killed,_ he thinks, staring at the blood stained on his jacket as they follow him into the unknown. 

* * *

The streets are a combination of chaotic and empty- some of them laden with hysterical people watching the live broadcasts, some ghostly empty. The military is swarming like flies now, buzzing radios and the occasional gunshot. 

Snow is swirling, normally a pretty sight, but now signalling cold and death. Gavin is lamenting the loss of his jacket, his shirt soaked through and practically glued to him. 

According to the news broadcasts on every billboard, over one thousand androids have been destroyed and thousands more are currently detained. 

_Have they found him? Karlis? Murdered literally on my doorstep?_

'Where are we going?' he asks the android. He's storming ahead determinedly, marching though the slowly building snow. 

It's hard to keep up, especially with a flagging Lina dragging her feet along exhaustedly, half clutching his coat around her. 

'You okay?' he asks her, barely audible over the . She doesn't reply. He is worried about her, her over large green eyes with android death statistics reflected in them. Her hair is spiked from the snow. 

The android stops, finally, at a seemingly random sidestreet. Gavin half expects to see tumbleweed, its that eerily empty. Lina sags against his side. She seems oddly tired. 

'Where the goddamn hell is this?' he asks. The android turns to face them. 

'There are still running trains.' he says. 'If you can manage to get on one you should be able to at least make it out of the city.' 

Gavin considers this. Its not a bad idea. 

'But if the stations are closed, how do we get on the train?' Lina says, monotone. 

'I need to tell you something,' the android interrupts suddenly. Gavin immediately feels sick. That tone of voice is normally accompanied by extremely bad news. 

'What?' he manages. 

The android dithers for a moment, a still statue in the increasingly heavy snow. 

Then-

'Your brother is looking for you.' 

' _.... God loves his children, God loves his children.....'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what does this mean for them?  
> hope you're enjoying this, sorry this one was kind of short/ fast moving but I have so much story to tell lmao  
> the song is paranoid android, by the way!  
> (my tumblr: @ace-roboto if u want lol) 
> 
> next- the past, and gavin realises he's done something irreversible...

**Author's Note:**

> hey! :) hope u enjoy, stick around to find out what happens!  
> updates on Thursdays and Sundays, hopefully!  
> leave a kudos/comment if u like it (be nice lol), stay safe and stay swag <3


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